


hopeless

by superfluouskeys



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Duskwight Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), it's been Quite A While since I wrote an explicit fic LOL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:00:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: “As a historian,” G’raha says playfully, “I cannot help but wonder, amongst her veritable legion of admirers, did the illustrious Warrior of Light ever deign to favour any with her affections?”“I fear she has a bit of a taste for melodrama,” says Adrienne, more seriously than he had hoped.  “She once met a brilliant young man, you see, who favoured her with just one kiss before he shut himself away from the world.  Fool that she is, I don’t think she ever quite managed to move on.”
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 46
Kudos: 89





	1. kiss on the cheek

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I was thinking about how I have such a fondness for pining that no one ever gets to have any fun and then I saw this 10 kisses challenge in [this lovely discord!](https://discord.gg/enabling-debauched-xivfic) This was very fun for me to work on, and I honestly felt like it was a really helpful challenge for me as a writer, so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Each chapter is titled with the specific kiss prompt, and the spicy chapters are denoted as such. Bonus challenges were one kiss per scene and half initiated by each partner, which I kinda half tried to adhere to also LOL.

“Fortune go with you, Adrienne.”

She offers up her customary meaningless smile and gives a little nod of affirmation, then turns her attention to the labyrinth before her.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” G’raha Tia calls after her, just before she begins her ascent. He is still perhaps a little on the sullen side, but his tone is decidedly light, meant to reach out and not to push away.

She turns back to face him. “Don’t you think it would be a little difficult to observe all those ancient artifacts while also engaged in combat?” she wonders, not unkindly.

G’raha sniffs. “I’ll have you know I am more than capable of multitasking.”

She’s never found it remotely charming to see someone pouting before. She has half a mind to physically shake the notion out of her head.

“Anyway, I take it you’ve never tried your hand at archery. I daresay it’s not nearly as exciting as what you do.” He gestures to her staff.

She inclines her head thoughtfully. “You should try it sometime,” she tells him. Later, she thinks, she’d like to ask him what’s keeping him from doing all the little things that seem to strike his fancy. Sure, there are ancient tomes to study, and Cid has forbidden him from joining her on this particular excursion, but what of matters less consequential?

G’raha turns suddenly and jarringly bashful. “Alas, I’ve no talent for magicks,” he says amiably. He reaches over his shoulder to tap his bow. “Truthfully, I’m no prodigy with the bow, either, but it serves me well enough.”

Cid calls out from behind them, and G’raha positively wilts. “Duty calls,” he sighs.

Before he can retreat, or before she can think better of it, Adrienne throws an arm about his shoulders and ducks her head to kiss his cheek. He freezes under her touch, his expression dazed, but not displeased.

“You should give yourself more credit, G’raha Tia,” she says fondly before she turns to depart.


	2. kiss on the lips

G’raha Tia seldom finds much cause to miss home. His childhood was lonely and miserable at the best of times. He wasn’t the sort of boy who amounted to anything in Seeker tribes. He was not strong or aggressive, nor was he remotely well-liked, either by peers or elders.

Indeed, it became so painfully obvious that his peers were pointedly ignoring him that he learned to climb exceptionally well, and took to tucking himself away up in high places whenever he was feeling overly noticeable. It was by this means that he learned that the other teenagers in the tribe would sneak out into the woods on the weekends to drink and play games together, and that he must certainly be the only one not invited.

Then, one day, not long before he left his tribe for good, a girl took a sudden and inexplicable interest in him. She sidled up to him, rather closer than people usually got, and asked him what he was reading. He was cold and guarded, expecting to be mocked, but she was undeterred.

The next day, she snuck up behind him and pulled his tail, and she could not quite bring herself to stop giggling about the way he shrieked in response for the better part of the afternoon.

They didn’t have very much in common, as far as G’raha could tell, but that didn’t seem to bother her, either. As days passed, he told her about what he was reading, and she told him all the things he never would have known about his peers—things like, who was a good kisser, who liked to drink a little too much, who had done a lot more than just kissing, and who hadn’t, but would very much like to.

“You should come out this weekend,” she said offhandedly.

G’raha rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “I don’t think I’d be invited,” he said.

She laughed. “I’m inviting you, silly.”

So, when the weekend came, G’raha crept into the woods with the other teenagers from his tribe. It was a surprisingly large gathering. There were Miquo’te from another Seeker tribe there, as well, along with a smattering of Keepers with their dark eyes and moon-touched faces, and even a trio of Hyuran boys from the neighbouring town.

Perhaps this should have put him at ease, or at least played upon his natural curiosity, but in truth he only felt more out of place. All these outsiders, and G’raha was less welcome amongst his own kin than they.

For better or worse, however, his new friend had her own designs upon his time. She put an abrupt halt to his melancholy musing by shoving a bottle of something into his hand and pulling him by the elbow over to the fire.

It was soothing, in its way, to have something to do with his hands while she talked. It struck him as odd that she was sitting so close to him, stranger still that she hadn’t let go of his arm, but then again, everyone else here seemed to be cozied up in the same fashion.

She told him that the other Seeker tribe was much stricter than theirs, and one of the Hyuran boys was very sweet, actually, and he came all the way out here every weekend because he carried a torch for one of the Keepers. Then she stopped suddenly, and he felt as though he were being studied.

He turned to look at her, a silent question.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t know why everyone says you’re so ugly. You’re really not.”

G’raha’s stomach turned. He didn’t know what to say. He wished he were anywhere else. “Thank you?”

She leaned in and kissed him, and he felt nothing but shame and confusion.

She didn’t talk to him anymore after that. He wished he could have said he didn’t mind. Failing that, he wishes he could say that the incident is now nearly eight years in the past, and that it no longer plagues him. Yet, the opportunity to kiss someone has presented itself to him a handful of times since then, and each time, he has found himself unable to silence a nagging inner voice that wonders whether each of them was thinking that G’raha really wasn’t nearly as ugly as everyone said.

“ _Gods_ ,” groans a voice from just below him. “How do you get up here all the time?”

G’raha startles and scrambles over to the edge just as Adrienne’s hand finds purchase upon a wooden plank. She is lanky and wields a staff—she’s not built for climbing—but then again, she is the Warrior of Light. She’s built for anything she deems worthy of her time. He offers her a hand.

“Years of practice,” he tells her as she heaves herself the rest of the way up. “Not that I mind the company, but what inspired this feat of mountaineering? There is a ladder around here somewhere.”

Adrienne slumps against the rocks and flexes her fingers experimentally. “Oh, I don’t know, I saw you do it and I wanted to try. Am I interrupting your brooding?”

G’raha snorts. “The interruption is hardly unwelcome.”

“What were you thinking about?”

He settles himself next to her as he considers whether he wants to tell her, at least a little of it. She is, after all, the reason the incident has resurfaced in his mind. Of all the times he’s been presented with the opportunity to kiss someone, he can’t remember ever particularly wanting to before now.

But of course she is the savior of a nation, the champion of a realm, and he is just a person who happens to know an awful lot about the task to which she has applied herself for the moment. Once she and her team of adventurers have cleared the way into the Syrcus Tower, she will take her leave, on to the next great adventure, and likely forget G’raha Tia ever existed as soon as he leaves her field of view.

The certainty of his hopelessness renders him bold, however, and he decides to speak true. “I was thinking about my first kiss, actually,” he says, only a little embarrassed.

“Oh?” Adrienne perks up in his periphery. “What was it like?”

“Hm,” G’raha shakes his head. He finds he couldn’t begin to put the feeling into words, and he isn’t sure he wants to tell her exactly what was said. “What about yours?”

“Oh,” Adrienne lets out a breathy little chuckle. “I barely remember. I was all caught up in whether I’d be good at kissing, and completely missed the part where you’re supposed to kiss someone because you want to.”

G’raha laughs, loud and full, and he feels something in his chest unclench. “I think I might know what you mean.”

At last satisfied with the condition of her hands, she folds them in her lap and leans in to knock her shoulder against his. “What got you thinking about your first kiss, G’raha?”

He turns to face her on instinct and instantly regrets it. He freezes up and stammers under her steady gaze, surely giving himself away. She inclines her head studiously, and a smile begins to tug at the corners of her lips.

“You know,” she begins thoughtfully. G’raha hears the words echoing across the years. Internally, he endeavours to shield himself from a killing blow as she continues, “for as handsome and as clever as you are, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so shy.”

He kisses her before he realizes that the next thing she says is “Who is it?”

It’s quick, and clumsy, and _wonderful_. She makes a little noise of surprise against his lips and grasps onto his arms, and when he pulls away, at least halfway to sputtering a rather lengthy series of apologies, her eyes are closed and she is leaning in like she wishes he hadn’t stopped.

Indeed, it is so far removed from his previous experience that G’raha decides he would much prefer to think of this as his first kiss, and to file the other away as a most unfortunate incident which is now nearly eight years in the past and, should he be so lucky, may one day cease to plague him.


	3. kiss on the crown of the head

“Are you awake?”

“Mhm,” Adrienne lies. Indeed, it is the very gentleness of her awakening that startles her into proper consciousness. Ordinarily she’s a very light sleeper, but at the moment she feels as though she could have slept through the end of the world.

As she comes to her senses, she finally notices the telltale silhouette at the entrance to her tent and realizes that he has spoken.

“G’raha?” she says, stupidly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, already withdrawing. “I shouldn’t have—“

“Wait!” she scrambles groggily after him to hold him in place. “I’m awake now.”

G’raha still looks like he might bolt at the slightest provocation. She releases her hold on his arm and retrieves her blanket to wrap around her shoulders, more for comfort than for warmth. Evidently soothed by her busywork, G’raha eventually settles beside her.

“How do you do it?” he asks, softly. “Face all these mythical beasts and ancient horrors? It can’t be easy, even if you make it look so.”

Most people don’t believe in her the way G’raha does. They see her as Hydaelyn’s chosen or as something just slightly too inhuman to know terror. G’raha always manages to find a way to praise her skill on the battlefield without making her feel like she’s from another planet. She wishes she knew how to tell him how much it means to her.

“I don’t know,” she says, instead, which is true. “Hydaelyn’s blessing, whatever it is, lets me carry on where others couldn’t. If something needs to be done and no one else can do it, and the alternative is…untold destruction, well then, who would I be to refuse?”

G’raha’s brow furrows as he considers this. “Does it ever bother you?” he dares to ask. “That you were…chosen for this life? That you cannot refuse it?”

For this, too, she wishes she knew how to thank him. No one else would dare to ask her such a thing. At least—no one else who deserved an honest answer.

“Not really,” she says, slowly. “But I don’t have—“ She hesitates, reaches for the words that describe the feeling. 

“There’s nothing I want more,” she tries, “but I don’t mean that the way it sounds. I mean I don’t have a family or a lover or a calling in life. Something to live for. Something that would chart my course. If I had something like that, I think I might very well begrudge my fate. As it stands,” she lifts a shoulder with a half-hearted smile, “at least this way I’m doing something that matters.”

Her error, she thinks later, was that she was not thinking about how her words might apply to anyone other than herself. She did not stop to wonder why G’raha would wake her in the middle of the night to ask her such a particular question, because to her it had seemed perfectly in line with his character to do so out of sheer intellectual curiosity.

“I see,” says G’raha solemnly to the night sky. Then, far more brightly, he adds, “But your fate does not preclude you from finding such things. Indeed, I should think adventuring far and wide would be an excellent way of learning what the world has to offer, and therefore what one might want most of all from it.”

Overcome by a wave of affection, she reaches out and touches his cheek fondly, brushing her thumb across the marking beneath his blue eye before she withdraws and pulls her blanket around her shoulders once more.

He seems only slightly startled that she has touched him, but his expression as he watches her is utterly unreadable under the pale light of the moon.

“You should try it sometime,” she says. “Adventuring, I mean.”

He lets out a soft breath of something like laughter and turns his gaze away from her at last. “I’d like to,” he says, gentle as the night around them. Obvious though his desire might be, the words feel like a confession. “But there is…something I must do, and no one else who can do it. So it hardly matters what I want.”

The depth of her affection overwhelms her once more, and she reaches out with her blanket to wrap an arm about his shoulders. He startles again, but takes the corner of the blanket he has been offered, and she’s sure she hears a little sigh of contentment as he nestles against her.

“It matters,” she tells him, fervently, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Of course it matters.”

He is quiet and still for some time after that. She can feel that his heartbeat is fast and that his breathing is unsteady. He takes her hand in his, cautiously, as though he fears he is not allowed.


	4. kiss on the hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shadowbringers spoilers start here! Wanted to do at least one with the Exarch's identity concealed without making it a whole tangent.

Seeing her like this is agony.

He had known it would be, convinced himself he was prepared, had even underplayed it to himself. He has lived a hundred years—thrice over, if one counts the years he spent asleep—since last he saw her. He should only be glad to see her alive and well, he told himself. It would be foolish in the extreme to entertain any lingering feelings he might have had before the entirety of his existence had shifted so completely.

He has told himself all of this, but the heart knows no such reason. It is agony to see her like this, world-weary and guarded and smiling in a way that tells him she most assuredly does not trust him in the slightest.

Better that way, he tries to tell himself, and yet, as before, as ever, he desperately wants her to like him, to look upon him with even a fraction of the fondness she once held for him. He feeds her information with the intent to intrigue. He relishes any opportunity to show her the things of which he is most proud. He always sees to it personally that she has everything she needs, and sometimes he cannot even stop himself from leaving her a note along with his offerings.

And when night returns to the Crystarium and its citizens move from awestruck reverence to wild celebration, he cannot resist the temptation to bask in her presence. Everyone in the Crystarium wants to greet her personally, of course, and the overabundance of effusive strangers renders the Crystal Exarch her safest refuge. She gravitates to his side, and indeed, even endeavours to place him between herself and the ever-approaching crowd, a burden he is more than happy to undertake.

“Pray forgive the people of Norvrandt their enthusiasm,” he says quietly when they are left, however briefly, to their own devices. “Though of course it’s no less praise than you deserve,” he amends with a smile.

Adrienne averts her gaze bashfully. “I’m sure I don’t know the half of it,” she says. “I’ve done without the night sky for, what, a couple of weeks now, and even I feel half-mad with relief.” She looks at him again, and offers him a smile that is warm and genuine. “But it has been just a trifle overwhelming,” she concedes. “Thank you for your company.”

Impulsively, instinctively, he offers his arm. “Shall I escort you to the Pendants?”

Devastatingly, her expression turns hesitant. “All right,” she says, and takes his arm.

Perhaps he ought to have known better. If seeing her is agony, her hand on his arm is infinitely worse. Gone is the easy way in which she touched him a hundred years ago. He is a stranger to her, a mystery by necessity, a useful tool against the madding crowd of her admirers, but certainly not to be trusted.

“I…hope I haven’t overstepped,” he says as they walk. “I only thought you might prefer not to encounter another wave of well-wishers on your own.”

“No, it’s all right,” she says. “It’s very kind of you, actually, I just…didn’t expect it, that’s all.”

“What did you expect?” the Exarch wonders.

“Oh, I don’t know, ‘I’ll have my assistant escort you’?”

Laughter bubbles up within him, weak and wobbly, like a muscle long out of use. “To think, the greatest hero of our time, relegated to the tasks of an assistant.”

Adrienne inhales as though to speak, then hesitates a moment. “While I understand that you have your secrets, and I assume it’s for good reason, I do have one curiosity I wonder if you might answer for me.”

This, of all things, she makes far easier than he had anticipated. “I shall gladly tell you anything that I can.”

She stops at the foot of the stairs before the Pendants to look down at him, her gaze suddenly piercing. “How did you know to summon me in the first place? What did you know of me before you brought me here, and how?”

It should be an easy answer, as it’s a question he had anticipated, and the explanation he has rehearsed isn’t entirely false, but the intensity of her gaze is almost unbearable. How dare he lie to her now, like this? It is simple, almost gratifying to lie when people are being nosy and difficult, but here she is, not a fortnight in this land and already amongst its greatest heroes, ready and willing to undertake an impossible task at his behest, happy to let him keep his secrets even if she suspects they directly concern her.

Nevertheless, he has rehearsed his part well. “Time moves in curious ways between worlds,” he says, as smoothly as he can manage. Impulsively, instinctively, he takes her hand and brings it to his lips. “I knew only that impact of your deeds could be seen and felt across centuries.”

She is unconvinced, unsatisfied, and perhaps even more suspicious than before. Her smile turns thin and guarded, and he feels as though he’ll be sick.

“Thank you anyway, Exarch,” she says flatly before she withdraws.


	5. kiss on the forehead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: vaguely suicidal thoughts

The din of the jubilant crowd down below is almost unbearable, even from here. He feels the sound pressing in around him, threatening to suffocate him. He shouldn’t be here. He is supposed to be dead. Everything would be so much better if he had died when he was supposed to.

What is he meant to do now? Go on living like this? The only thing that has made the last century remotely tolerable has been knowing that it had an end date, that one day he could fulfill his duty, check off the last box on his list, and then cease to exist. So what if he had lost everything? So what if he was remembered as a pitiful excuse for a villain, so what if he was not remembered at all?

But he has failed and fallen short yet again, and so he is here, as ever, tragically alive in a world with no place for him.

He could end it now, he thinks idly, impassively. Slip away in the night, so that the souls his errant steps have bound here might wake to find themselves freed. It would be a coward’s death, to be certain, but he deserves no better.

“It’s lucky no one ever told me about your favourite haunt before we climbed Mount Gulg,” says Adrienne from behind him, voice light but cautious. “I’d have known it was you right off. I’ve never known anyone so fond of brooding in impossibly high places.”

He had hoped that she would be lost in the celebration, that she wouldn’t miss him, wouldn’t even think to look for him. At least, that was what he had told himself. Now that she is here, he is overcome by a cold and clawing desperation to retain her presence, and it renders him speechless.

“No one is angry with you, you know,” she says as she approaches, still with that aching softness about her voice. He’s never heard her talk like that. He feels like a wounded animal. “Myself least of all.”

“Perhaps you should be,” he says miserably.

“I don’t think so,” she insists as she settles herself at his side.

“Why not?” he rasps, squeezing his eyes closed. He’d rather she were angry with him, would rather she despised him. It would be less painful than this.

“Because I understand what you meant to do?” she says, like it should be obvious. She scoffs. “Because I’m sure I don’t know the half of what it must have been like all these years, and you’re—“

He feels the warmth of her hand hovering just shy of his shoulder, her chilled fingertips ghosting over his chin, willing him to meet her gaze. His eyes sting with unshed tears, but he cannot deny her. He looks up to find that she, too, is holding back tears, her moon-touched eyes glimmering like starlight.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she says, with such a ferocity he cannot help but to believe her, to believe that there may yet be something left for him in this wretched world.

She leans in and presses her lips to his forehead, the bridge of his nose, the spot on his cheek where the crystal has come to a jagged point. Then she lingers there, cradling his face in her hands, her forehead pressed to his, her breathing ragged and tremulous. His body yearns to close the distance between them, but his mind fairly screams its protestations. He swallows hard and keeps still, waiting to see what she will do.

“I’m sorry,” she says at last, and pulls away to press another gentle kiss to his forehead.

 _No_ , he wants to say, _you have nothing to be sorry for. I am old and broken and I have overstayed my welcome in the world of the living_. But he cannot bring himself to say anything. He leans into her, and she, seeming to understand, wraps her arms about him and holds him tightly while he steadies himself.

That she should still want him after all this time, and in this broken body, no less, is unfathomable, impossible. She is caught up in the drama of it, surely, merely glad to see one of a thousand people she thought she had lost, and her apology was meant thus.

This is acceptable to him. His breathing slows, and she loosens her hold on him. She begins running her fingers through his hair, and he feels a calm wash over him, unlike anything he has known these many long years. The din from the crowd below no longer troubles him. Really, he thinks, he ought to pull himself together and let her get back to the celebration of her victory.

“Pray forgive me for keeping you,” he says, as evenly as he can manage. Distantly, he realizes he has been grasping onto her arms rather tightly, and sets about releasing her from his vise grip. “I would not want you to miss the festivities on my account.”

Her fingers find his ears, and he can do nothing to suppress the shuddering sigh that overtakes him at the sensation.

She hums, low and warm and mirthful. “I’ve had more than my fill of crowds for tonight,” she says. “Unless you’re trying to be rid of me, I’d much rather be here.”

Something within him, some last vestige of restraint, cracks. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, and he returns her embrace in full.

As night gives way to a grey and chilly morning, the Crystal Exarch begins to make peace with living. What a gift, he thinks, what a blessing, that he should be given a second chance to be alive at the same time as the Warrior of Light.


	6. kiss on the neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5.3 spoilers begin here!

There is nothing to be done for it.

Every time—every single time—she calls him by his given name, he is rendered a stammering mess. And from the way she smiles at him as he struggles to get a hold of himself, he’s beginning to think she does it on purpose.

Once—the second time? Or perhaps it was the third—her smile fell. “Would you rather I didn’t call you that?” she asked him seriously.

“No!” he cried, too quickly. “I mean. You may call me…anything you like.”

He realized his mistake an instant too late, but the depth of his embarrassment was almost worth her low, melodious laughter. “I shall bear that in mind,” she said teasingly, but she has since merely continued to refer to him as G’raha Tia, and to delight in his undoing.

Privately, he still cannot fathom the ease with which she has fallen back into treating him the way she did in another lifetime, as a dear and trusted friend. He cannot help but to wonder whether she is merely glad not to have lost someone for whom she felt responsible, and whether her fondness will wane rather quickly when the relief wears off.

For the moment, he relishes her frequent company and basks greedily in the glow of her attention. When she is away, he devotes himself night and day to reversing the summoning of the remaining Scions. When she is here, he cannot help but take whatever time she affords him.

On this particular afternoon, he has been put on a forced hiatus by Beg Lugg, after the pain of the spreading crystal brought him to his knees twice over. Until this very moment, he had resigned himself to pacing the tower irritably until his associate deemed him well enough to continue. He knows not whether it is a sound or simply a feeling that alerts him to the activity of the portal, but his heart fairly leaps in his chest.

He rushes into the Ocular to greet her. “My friend!” he cries, feeling rather desperate to convey to her just how glad he is of her arrival.

But she stops short at the sight of him, and her radiant smile falters. “Oh, G’raha, what’s happened?”

She reaches out to him, takes his left hand between both of hers, and only then does he see what he should have already known. “Oh,” he utters helpfully, “that.”

Adrienne traces the flecks of crystal taking root in his left hand, brow knitted with open and obvious worry. Though he would never wish unhappiness upon her, in the privacy of his own mind, he can concede that it is not so terrible to feel so cared for. She looks up from the state of his hand, a silent plea for an explanation.

“That is my own doing, I’m afraid,” he tells her sheepishly. “The tower’s way of compensating me for the power I draw from it. Rest assured, it is no great inconvenience.” _At present_ , he almost adds, but that begs the question—how far will it spread, and how fast? After all, his work is far from over.

“It doesn’t hurt?” Adrienne presses.

He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Truthfully, I hadn’t noticed it until now.” He inclines his head playfully, emboldened by her uncommon softness. “Though I must say what an honour it is to have the Warrior of Darkness fairly doting upon me in my hour of need.”

It’s something he would have said a hundred years ago, he cannot help but think, and his jest has the desired effect. She awards him a scoff of ill-concealed amusement and turns her gaze away. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she replies crisply, but she never quite lets go of his hand.

“Well,” he continues, “regardless of my opinion on the matter, I have been sent away from my work to rest for the day, so I am at your service, should you require anything.”

She returns her attention to him, her expression still far softer than he is accustomed to. “How about some company?” she asks him.

His heart swells. “I should like nothing more,” he tells her truthfully.

Adrienne’s demeanour is almost unfailingly cheery, and she regards nearly everyone, friend and enemy alike, with a polite and reserved pleasantness that renders her true feelings difficult to read. The way G’raha has learned to discern whom Adrienne trusts and whom she does not is in what she tells them. Big things—battles and enemies and wars—are not particularly special to the Warrior of Light. When they are alone, they do not discuss the fragility of the Scions’ souls or the unrest in Garlemald.

Instead, when he asks her what’s new, she tells him that she’s taken a shine to crafting lately, specifically those horrifying little wind-up automatons everyone is so fond of these days. She tells him that the Azure Dragoon, who happened to be the one to save her in the aftermath of her most untimely failed summoning, was gracious enough to allow her to buy him a drink for his trouble before he disappeared ‘off to wherever he goes’. When G’raha expresses his interest, Adrienne amends with some embarrassment that she had rather openly detested the man when first they met, but has since come to understand why he is the way that he is (primarily sullen, apparently) and has developed a certain amount of fondness for him.

Together they venture out into the beautiful fields of Lakeland and settle themselves a short distance from the water. This land has always been lovely, but now it is also peaceful, something G’raha never thought he would live to see.

He turns to look upon Adrienne at his side, overcome by an uncommon gladness to be alive, only to find that she is already watching him carefully. His smile turns questioning, but he is feeling too cheerful to be easily rattled.

She reaches out to him, her fingers halting just short of his face. “May I?” she asks him, gentle as the breeze.

He nods, uncomprehending. Distantly, he wonders whether there is anything he could find it within himself to deny her.

Her fingertips ghost over the crystal upon his cheek, tracing the vein down to his jawline, where it begins to spread. “You’re sure it doesn’t hurt?” she asks him.

“Well,” he concedes. “It did when it happened. Not anymore.” Mostly. Usually.

She hums thoughtfully as she draws an inscrutable pattern over the crystal on his neck, where his Sharlayan markings used to be. He wonders if she is remembering him as he once was, young and whole, and, because he cannot physically stop a thought, he wonders whether she might have liked him better that way, whether perhaps, if he were still young and whole, she might—

The crystal in his skin numbs him to most sensations. He has subjected his crystallized hand to white-hot flame and freezing water out of sheer morbid curiosity. Thus, he had naturally assumed that the same would be true of human touch, though he has never had cause to find out.

Now, he finds conclusively that white-hot flame and freezing water have nothing on Adrienne’s lips against his throat.

He inhales sharply and grasps onto her arm, and her eyes flutter open, searching. He can only assume that she finds what she seeks in his expression, for she kisses him again, all along the jagged line that has divided him between crystal and flesh. Her path takes her agonizingly close to his lips, but when he turns to catch her, she darts away with an ill-concealed grin and continues her chosen course all the way up to where the crystal ends just below his eye.

Surely now, he thinks, but she eludes him yet again. He realizes as she endeavours to move her arm that he is still holding it in a vise grip, yet he labours to set her free as she advances upon him. G’raha’s hand falls to the ground to steady himself, and Adrienne’s lips traverse the veins of crystal along his neck once more, pausing only when she reaches the dip of his collarbone, where the crystal comes to a point just above the collar of his tunic.

She looks up into his eyes then, her gaze heavy and her lips parted. Oh, to think that she might continue her descent, that her lips might trace a map of the crystal that has begun to overtake his body, with such care and such gentleness that he would find cause to feel glad of the wretched business!

The mere idea of it sends a thrill coursing through him, equal parts desire and horror. He cannot bear to catch even a fleeting glimpse of himself without his robes. To entertain more than the most fantastical notion of her setting eyes upon his naked body is perverse in the extreme, and he cannot abide it.

Adrienne is still watching him intently, everything about her poised to spring. Again he labours to talk himself down from a precipice. She is caught up in the moment, surely. The crystal growing into his skin has piqued her curiosity, and she has merely been overzealous in her exploration. Perhaps she did harbor some fondness for him, a lifetime ago and a world apart, and perhaps, if he were still young and whole, he might have something worth offering to her.

Adrienne licks her lips nervously and begins to withdraw. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Frighten?” he echoes, stricken. He catches her arm lightly.

She inclines her head curiously. “I don’t know how else to read the way you’re looking at me right now,” she says, with a sad little smile. “I feel I should have seen it before, but I thought for a moment you—“

“Forgive me,” he effuses, before he has fully decided to speak. He averts his gaze, unable to bear the intensity in her eyes, and attempts a chuckle. “Forgive me my weakness. For a moment, I confess, I indulged in the delusion that you might—well.” 

He schools his expression into something near enough to pleasant neutrality and meets her gaze once more. “I certainly do not begrudge you your curiosity,” he says. “But you may rest assured, I would never presume you harboured any desire for me beyond that.”

Adrienne raises her eyebrows, stunned, inhales as though to respond, then sighs and shakes her head. Her expression turns impossibly soft, her eyes half-closed and her lips just barely curling into a fond smile that sets his heart aflutter.

“You know,” she says, “for as handsome and as clever as you are, you could be frightfully arrogant. As it stands,” she meets his eyes with nothing but undeniable affection, “you never have given yourself enough credit.”

Her expression turns playful, and her tone takes on its usual sharpness. “Tell me you harbor no desire for me, G’raha Tia, and I swear I shall never broach the subject again.” She leans in, somehow more desirable than ever before. “But do not presume to tell me what I desire, for you may rest assured, I know my own heart.”

He has fallen asleep, he decides. His exertions have somehow tired him out so much that he has just simply fallen asleep in the Umbilicus, and now he is having an uncommonly vivid dream. Or perhaps the Warrior of Light did come to the First for a visit, and they came all the way out here only for him to fall asleep in the sun like the foolish old man that he is.

“There is,” he breathes, “ _nothing_ …I desire more.”

Her expression slackens into something like surprise, and she moves to close the distance between them at long last. “Well, all right then,” she says, just shy of his lips.

She kisses him, soft as the breeze, and he ceases his fruitless attempt to balance on his palms in favour of drawing her closer, allowing himself to fall back into the grass. If indeed this is a dream, he hopes fervently that he never wakes.


	7. kiss on the nose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW! This is the nose kiss one would you believe. Illicit nose kisses.

Days could have passed, and G’raha Tia would have been none the wiser.

Indeed, when next he becomes aware of his surroundings, it is because the sun is hanging low in the sky, painting the surface of the lake in brilliant oranges and reds, and supposing that this does not turn out to be a rather magnificent dream, he is far enough from the Tower to feel the effect of the distance. He would prefer not to be incapacitated before he can discern what Adrienne’s intentions for the remainder of the evening might be.

She is, after all, still tracing the edge of the crystal upon his neck with her fingers, and the sensation, along with the absurd notion that she might not find his body wholly repulsive, is becoming downright maddening.

“We should…get back,” he says, haltingly, searching for words that do not mean stop, but perhaps do not betray exactly how eager he is to continue.

Adrienne has shifted to lay at his side, propping herself up with one arm while she continues to trace the crystal upon his throat with muted fascination. She presses a long and lingering kiss to his lips before she sets about standing up. “I suppose there is some sense in that,” she says airily. She offers him her hand, and he finds, to his immense embarrassment, that he must lean rather heavily upon her to right himself.

Adrienne holds him steady as they walk without comment, and G’raha is sure he will spend the entirety of the journey in shameful silence. It is almost a mercy when she says, very quietly, “Even this far?”

“I did mention I was meant to spend the afternoon resting,” he says, feigning lightness. “Worry not—I shall be good as new when we’re a little closer.”

“Are you sure?” Adrienne presses, glancing down at him. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your rest.”

The implication alone imbues him with the will to carry on. “Wouldn’t you?” he dares.

She bites back a grin, looking ahead to the gleaming tower high above them. “Well. Not if you _really_ needed it.”

“And if I didn’t?” He wonders, distantly, how he might have courted her as a young man. Stupidly, and brazenly, no doubt, a fool trying to pluck a star from the heavens. He wonders whether she would have found him charming or cloying, whether she only tolerates his fumbling attempt at flirting now out of a sense of nostalgia for the G’raha Tia who didn’t need to be held upright after a few bells spent basking in the sun.

“Well then,” Adrienne inclines her head thoughtfully, “I suppose I would wait a moment, to see if you were going to invite me in—I’d say offering to show me some artifact or trinket from your travels across time and space would be sufficient pretense, wouldn’t you?”

Her eyes sparkle with the light from the approaching tower. He thinks his jaw may have gone slack.

“But,” she continues, a self-satisfied smirk spreading across her lovely features, “if I sensed that your unaccountable bashfulness might be getting the better of you, I might be persuaded to offer up my room at the Pendants, though the promise of a drink isn’t half as exciting, in my opinion.”

As Lakeland gives way to the paved road into the Crystarium proper, G’raha feels a tremendous sense of relief washing over him, both physical and mental. Illogically, he had feared that in this one particular instance, his strength might not return to him, and he would be forced to bid his champion good evening, only to spend the remainder of the night loathing himself for his weakness, wondering as ever, if only, if only…

“Now that you mention it,” he says, with all the ridiculous bravado of a hundred years prior, “I have been wondering if you might like to see the tomes detailing your many adventures over the years. I daresay some of them might venture rather liberally into the realm of speculation.”

“Is that so?” Sensing the change in him, Adrienne releases her hold upon his torso and takes the crook of his elbow, instead.

G’raha hums. “Some of your biographers even presumed to speculate upon the nature of your love life.”

Adrienne sputters, and awards him a rather delightful look of disbelief.

G’raha meets her indignation with a curious grin. “For example, it was said that Ser Aymeric de Borel of Ishgard harboured a particular fondness for his champion.”

Adrienne relaxes into easy laughter. “He did invite me to dinner once,” she tells him. “He is a decent and kind man, have no doubt of that, but the dinner was…very awkward. And, for better or worse, it was cut short by more pressing matters, so whether he had anything else on his mind, I shall never know.”

Though the Crystarium is bustling at nearly any hour, its citizens leave their Crystal Exarch well enough alone when he is in the company of the Warrior of Darkness. Perhaps it is out of reverence, but he rather suspects it is because they sense some fragment of his tragedy: that he would gladly follow her anywhere she went, if only he could.

It occurs to him as the guard shows them into the tower that she has not told him exactly why she has ventured to the First today.

“As a historian,” G’raha says playfully, “I cannot help but wonder, amongst her veritable legion of admirers, did the illustrious Warrior of Light ever deign to favour any with her affections?”

As he leads her through the labyrinthine corridors to his personal chambers, her hand falls from the crook of his elbow and she laces her fingers with his.

“I fear she has a bit of a taste for melodrama,” says Adrienne, more seriously than he had hoped. “She once met a brilliant young man, you see, who favoured her with just one kiss before he shut himself away from the world for the rest of her lifetime.” She glances down at him with a warm and gentle sort of resignation. “Fool that she is, I don’t think she ever quite managed to move on.”

G’raha falters just shy of his door, free hand half-outstretched. It’s enough that the door yields to him, but he stands blankly at the threshold for a long moment before he can even think to respond.

“Well,” he utters, disbelieving, “that is a story I should very much like to rewrite.”

Adrienne’s smile turns positively jubilant. “I would trust no other,” she says as she leans down to kiss him.

When they part, she cradles his face in her hand the way she used to do, brushing her thumb over the marking beneath his eye, though now it finds crystal intermingled with flesh. She looks up then, surveying the sparse quarters of the Crystal Exarch. He has little need of sleep, little time for decorating, and has often gone through stretches of time where he felt himself unworthy of even the smallest comforts. His room is little more than another study which happens to play host to a bed.

“And what of you, my Lord Exarch?” Adrienne lets go of his hand to wander the room, tracing her fingers idly over one of the books lying open on his desk. “Surely a fair few must have been intrigued by the mystery that lay beneath the cowl? Was there ever any room in the epic of G’raha Tia for a love interest?”

G’raha rubs the back of his neck, an age-old habit which he can’t help but notice he never seems to resort to anymore, save in her presence. “There were…offers,” he says. “But…well.” _Who could compare to you?_ he narrowly avoids adding. “There were other matters to attend to.”

Adrienne turns over her shoulder, “Really? Never?”

G’raha is sure his expression answers for him. Adrienne returns the full force of her attention to him, and he feels certain he will die of embarrassment right then and there. It is one thing to indulge in fantasy, another to allow his delusions to carry him this far. He has brought her here only to prove a magnificent disappointment, a pathetic and pining wretch who is not even young enough to have a reasonable excuse for his inexperience.

The question she poses, though, surprises him entirely. “Why me?”

“Why you?” he stammers. “Why not you? What do you mean?”

Adrienne focuses her gaze upon the golden ornaments at the collar of his robes, tracing them idly as she considers her words. “I mean, was it just the Warrior of Light thing? The impossible deeds, the strange magical gifts?”

G’raha’s brow furrows, very nearly failing to comprehend. “No,” he shakes his head fervently. “No, it’s…”

How to explain? How to say that it was the way she’d glared vaguely up into the treetops where he’d been hiding after positively obliterating everything in her path, where others had only flailed and stumbled, the way she’d smiled and laughed when he leapt from the ramparts, when everyone else only ever sighed and frowned, the way she had seemed somehow to instantly understand him, when everyone else he had ever met could only ever grow weary of trying?

How to tell her that it isn’t that she is the Warrior of Light, exactly, but that she inspires with everything she does? Not because of her gifts, not because of her deeds, but because in spite of everything, she never yields, never allows herself to be kept down, never cowers when faced with what should be an impossible task.

“Were you anyone else,” he tries, “I would have admired your skill and your story, certainly. But…we understood one another, did we not? You put into words things I could scarcely comprehend within my own heart. You—“ he shakes his head. “Forgive me. I could list your many virtues, if it would please you, but it would be a trite answer at best. For me, there...”

He shrugs, opens his arms to her in a show of defeat. “For me, there has only ever been you,” he says, for it is the truth, and if his efforts should at last leave him consumed by the crystal creeping across his body, then she ought to know it, before he loses his chance twice over.

If, on the other hand, he should live another three hundred years on this wretched shard, he thinks, he will never forget the way she looks at him now.

He is reminded of the way she looked when he dared approach her after the battle with Emet-Selch, his body broken and his head hung low. He had expected disgust, revilement, perhaps pity at the very mildest, and received only the sweet affirmation of his name upon her lips.

Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears, and her lower lip trembles. She inhales as though to speak, then shakes her head, emitting a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She takes his face in her hands and kisses him so soundly that he fears his knees will buckle beneath him. Stunned, his hands find her waist, steadying them both.

She runs her fingers through his hair, then, apparently dissatisfied with what she finds, reaches blindly until she frees his hair from its usual braid. The act is surprising enough to strike him as amusing, but he is not afforded the luxury of remarking upon it, for he can hardly deny the shuddering sigh of sheer pleasure that escapes him when she grabs fistfuls of his unbound hair to draw him against her.

Her cheerful eagerness goes a long way toward soothing his nerves. She pulls away to look at him, combing her fingers through his hair and grinning like it’s the greatest thing she’s ever seen, then tugs at his hands to lead him over to his own bed. 

He finds himself smiling back at her now, the excitement and curiosity of a younger and happier version of himself overtaking him for the moment. Her own hair is short and wiry, and she bears a long, thin scar down the right side of her face, easy to miss from any distance. She watches him with a note of pleasant confusion as he studies her, blinks twice when he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose, and lets out a little yelp when he nips at the tip of her ear.

He ducks his head to examine the tender flesh of her neck, and he is rewarded with a breathless hum and her hands in his hair, willing him impossibly nearer. His hands find the subtle dip of her waist, and his lips meet with the end of her bared skin. She is adorned in much the same way he is—caster’s robes over a simple tunic—and while the answer to his conundrum is clear, he hesitates to follow through with his instinct.

G’raha pulls away, looking to Adrienne for an answer to a question he doesn’t quite know how to ask. Blissfully, she seems to understand. She undoes the fastenings on her robes and casts them aside. Then she eyes him for a moment, tongue darting across her lips. G’raha almost laughs, almost weeps. To think that she might be nervous to disrobe for him!

Adrienne shifts her weight and makes to pull her tunic over her head, and G’raha’s mind goes a little too fuzzy to contemplate such matters too deeply. He cannot help it—he drinks in the sight of her unabashedly.

When at last she moves, it is only to draw strands of his hair between her fingers, brushing them idly away from his face. He tears his eyes away from the glory of her body to meet her gaze, and she awards him with a shadow of her usual, easy smile.

She _is_ nervous, he realizes, dumbstruck, and he is doing _nothing_ , except perhaps making it worse. _Pretty_ , a part of his brain supplies unhelpfully. The words he finds feel heavy upon his tongue, but they are true, and she ought to hear them. “The majesty of the night sky,” he breathes, reaching out for her, “is as nothing, when set against the woman who returned it to us.”

He must have done well enough, for Adrienne lets out a little huff of laugher and averts her gaze, and he can see that her face has taken on a truly charming blush. He thinks he says more, far less eloquently, as his lips traverse the lean muscle of her shoulders, the soft swell of her breasts, the glorious valley between her hip and her belly, but he is far too lost in her to think much of what he says. Indeed, he thinks little of pulling at the waistband of her trousers in his quest to see more of her. It is only after she happily obliges him, pushing her hips up off the bed to divest herself of the offending garment, that G’raha freezes up, seized by a cold kind of panic both foreign and familiar.

He knows what to do, distantly, theoretically, but he has never done it. And for all her easy, dismissive jests regarding her countless admirers, he is sure that Adrienne has. Perhaps sensing the change in him, she pushes herself up to meet him, her fingers finding the favoured haunt of his hair.

“Are you all right?” she asks him gently. She looks like she wants to say more, but she waits patiently for his answer.

Unbidden, his hand goes to the back of his neck, and he curses himself inwardly for the ages-old nervous tic. “I…confess, I fear I shall disappoint you. I’ve never…” he trails off, his face growing hot.

Adrienne is silent for a moment. She leans back on her hands. “I don’t know if you’ll remember this,” she says slowly, “but I once told you something I believe to be very important. You asked me what my first kiss was like, and I said—“

“Of course I remember,” he says before she can continue, not a little indignant at the prospect that he could forget anything she has ever said or done in his presence. “You said you were so caught up in whether you’d be good at kissing that you completely missed—“

G’raha falls silent. Adrienne grins at him.

“I had the same problem with intimacy in all its forms, by the way,” she says, reaching out to trace the gold embellishments upon the collar of his robes. “I treated everything like a skill to be mastered, desperate to be told I was good, talented, well-practiced.” She lets out a little chuckle and shakes her head. Her fingers travel upward, once again examining the divide between crystal and flesh.

“I don’t know what finally made me realize it doesn’t matter,” she continues. “But you see, nearly anything you do now will be perfect,” she brushes the backs of her fingers across his cheek, “because it’s you.”

He is halfway to saying something, full to bursting with words of adulation for her, and with words of ridicule for himself. Better not to speak, he thinks, and risk proving her immediately and horribly wrong. Instead, he leans in to recapture her lips, his hands ghosting over the bared flesh of her waist, fingers playing at the fabric of her smallclothes.

His lips begin the journey down her body afresh, pausing to savour the way her breath catches when he draws the skin of her neck gently between his teeth, the way her hands fist suddenly in his hair as he drags the tip of his tongue experimentally along the curve of her hipbone. She shifts her weight to aid him in removing her smallclothes, and he finds he is too intrigued to linger overlong upon his own unworthiness.

He draws his fingertips down past her belly and between her legs, and the warm wetness he discovers there sends a shudder coursing through him. He glances up to find Adrienne’s eyes heavy-lidded as she watches him, her breathing ragged. He leans down, pushing himself back with his elbows, and presses a gentle kiss between her legs, then another, delighting in the way she sinks back into the bed with a sigh of purest bliss.

He knows what to do, distantly, theoretically, from things he read and heard a very long time ago, from sources he might have done well never to trust. In practice, he finds, the act is much simpler than it had seemed in his head, for how can he resist the urge to taste her with his tongue, to discover how she will feel around his fingers, to learn what sounds she will make when he finds the right spots?

Before long, her grip tightens in his hair, and she is panting beneath him. It feels impossible, like something that could only happen in the very wildest of his dreams. He draws her clit between his lips and curls his fingers just so inside of her, and as she lurches forward and clenches around him with a breathless, “Oh, Raha,” he’s certain his name has never sounded sweeter.

He continues for as long as she will allow, until she squirms away from him with a halting little gasp, her hand finally releasing its vise grip upon him to fall limp upon the bed at her side.

“Gods,” she breathes, her eyes cast upward.

G’raha pulls himself up to lie at her side. “Was that…all right?” he cannot help but ask.

Adrienne turns to him, pulling him into a surprisingly fervent kiss. “More than,” she says against his lips. Then, more brightly, she tugs at the fabric of his robes. “My turn?”


	8. kiss on the thigh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW! again??? ***shocked and blushing emojis***

Given leave to do as she pleases, Adrienne descends upon him with overwhelming enthusiasm. G’raha undoes the fastenings on his robes with trembling hands, but mercifully, she divests him of the rest of his clothes with ease.

It is enough to drive him to madness, the way she really does seem to take it upon herself to map every trace of crystal upon his body with her lips. Long ago, when his best course of action became clear to him, the crystallization began in his right hand, and it has spread haphazardly from there. It sprawls across his chest, claws at his neck all the way up to his eye, and has just recently begun to creep down onto his thighs.

He tries not to think about it. Does everything in his power not to look at it. She is hovering halfway down the length of his torso when she stops suddenly, looking up into his eyes with a shadow of concern.

“Is it too much?” she asks him.

The truthful answer would be _yes, by the Twelve, of course it is too much_. He realizes she must have stopped because he is trembling all over. He struggles to steady his breathing. It is too much to bear that she, of all people, should look upon this wretched body with nothing but tender curiosity, should wish to touch him as he has touched her. Even if he were still young and whole, her affections would be too much to hope for, but now, like this?

He swallows hard and shakes his head, offering her a shaky smile. “More than I had ever dared to hope for,” he tells her truthfully.

Apparently satisfied, she presses another kiss to his sternum and continues her descent, pausing only briefly to imitate something he’d done earlier in what must have been a brush with pure insanity—she drags the tip of her tongue along the edge of crystal upon his hipbone.

For a moment he thinks he sees stars.

In the realm of reality, assuming this can be ascribed to such a place, he is certain he sees a glint of intrigue in her pale eyes as she tugs at the fabric of his smallclothes, following the path the fabric takes with lips and tongue and teeth.

She discards his smallclothes without so much as a glance, without so much as breaking contact with his skin as she continues to follow the outline of crystal all the way down to where it comes to a jagged point upon the sensitive flesh of his inner thigh. She kisses the spot with agonizing softness, and still the sensation sends a jolt of purest electricity through him. His hands move of their own accord, one gripping the bedclothes like a lifeline while the other grabs a fistful of her hair.

Adrienne glances up at him, searching, surprised but not displeased. He is bare before her, his desire for her at least as obvious as it has ever been, and though her lips curl upward into a rather wry grin, she seems to pay his nakedness little mind before she favours the crystal upon his thigh with another gentle kiss.

He thinks of the way she teased him before, steadfastly denying him a kiss on the lips until she had fully explored what crystal had been exposed to her. He wonders if her intention is the same now, and, more pressingly, exactly how long it will take for him to lose his mind to such a torment.

But something mercifully devoid of crystal has captured her attention at last, it seems, and G’raha wonders if perhaps he has wished for more than he can handle. Her tongue darts across her lips as she touches him curiously, and he feels positively dizzy. He cannot begin to fathom how wretched he must look when she glances up at him, yet he cannot bring himself to avert his gaze.

She watches him carefully as she takes him into her mouth. His vision blurs, and a stuttering groan escapes him. Her responding hum of delight is like to tear him apart at the seams. He throws his head back, thinks he might hear himself whimpering. He is lost to reason, can do nothing to stay the shallow jolt of his hips as she takes him deeper, periodically favouring him with little noises of approval that rip through him like a blade. He feels each one down to his very bones, strives to commit each wave of pleasure to memory. The idea of forgetting even a fraction of these moments is intolerable to him.

He shall die happy, he thinks. Let the Tower consume him here and now, for all he cares. Let him die like this, happier than he has ever been, than he had ever thought possible. Carve him into crystal in the throes of passion. Let any who might stumble upon his remains know that his Champion returned but a fraction of the love he held for her, and let that be his legacy.

He feels rather foolish when he begins to come to his senses, and quite glad that none save himself had to hear any of that. His body is still alight, rapturous beneath her touch, and all the while she has not relented. Her fingers trace lazy shapes across his skin as she draws delicious aftershocks of pleasure from him, still occasionally humming her inconceivable contentment with her circumstances.

He ought to tell her that she needn’t do this, that she has already done more than enough, but the sight of her is so intoxicating that he finds himself utterly unwilling to relinquish it. When at last he regains control of his hands, he first works at unclenching them, and then takes to running his fingers through Adrienne’s hair, a gesture of soothing, of grounding, meant more for himself than for her.

She withdraws, but not before bestrewing him with feather-light kisses. G’raha is stricken yet again by the absurdity, the impossibility of it, and he gazes upon her with disbelief as she crawls up to settle herself at his side. “Was that all right?” she asks him sweetly, though he’s fairly certain she knows the answer, and he feels himself laughing breathlessly as he turns to face her.

What is there to say? “Words have never failed me so completely,” he tells her before drawing her into a kiss.

“Tired already?” she teases, though regrettably, there is some weight to the question after his earlier show of weakness. “The night is young, my Lord Exarch.”

“The night is young,” he agrees breathlessly as Adrienne draws her fingers lazily down his chest, “and the Crystal Exarch has been blessed with the Warrior of Darkness in his bed.” His hands find her hips and pull her against him. “‘Twould be a poor show of hospitality indeed, to leave her wanting.”

Adrienne hums her amusement. “Yes, my thoughts exactly,” she says, low and rich, as she reaches down to curl her fingers around him.

He really is beyond all hope, he thinks, for this is all it takes to render him as ravenous as before, as though he had never once tasted of her.


	9. kiss on the eyelids

Adrienne is not accustomed to waking first. Sometimes she wakes to find G’raha already gone, sometimes over at his desk, and sometimes—all the more precious for their rarity—she wakes to find him still holding her. She never asks how long he has been fully awake, unwilling to leave her side.

Today, G’raha is still fast asleep, curled up tightly at her side, the blankets and the angle of his head hiding every trace of crystal from her view. He looks almost exactly the way he did when first they met, a handsome young man with a world of possibilities ahead of him.

Cold terror claws at her insides as she watches him, knowing as she does what lies beneath the blankets and the cascading locks of his unbound hair. The Crystal Tower is consuming him, more and faster with each passing day, and she cannot even say anything, because what good would it do to speak the words? Surely he knows already, and there is nothing either one of them can do.

Was it always just a matter of time?

She wishes it were cute, watching him sleep. She wishes she couldn’t bear to disturb him, didn’t feel desperate for every moment of his time, miserable in the knowledge that one day soon, the clock will run out.

She wonders what G’raha thinks about when he wakes before her.

She really should let him sleep. No doubt it will be another long and difficult stretch of days. But she’s getting that same feeling she chose to ignore a handful of years prior, that if she tears her eyes away from him, she will never see him again, and it’s driving her half-mad not to see what she knows is there.

She pushes G’raha’s hair away from his face and kisses his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his eyelids, and the softness of his cheeks, unmarred by crystal. How quickly her fascination turned to revilement when she learned that it was not merely his price for fusing himself with the Crystal Tower, but for every other great act besides.

His eyes flutter open as she presses her lips to his. He hums sleepily and draws her against him, both of his hands now hard and cold against her bare waist. She shivers involuntarily.

He murmurs an apology against her lips and makes to withdraw, but she hurries to stay his hands.

He pulls away just enough to offer her a questioning smile, sweet and soft, and this is exactly why she cannot bear to speak her mind. Because he knows, surely he knows, and there is nothing that either one of them can do.

Adrienne is not a crier, and she does not intend to start now. She forces the gnawing terror she feels to the back of her mind and brushes G’raha’s hair away from his face, reaching for something happier to fill the silence.

“Tell me something,” she says at last, perhaps just shy of pleading. “Something you’ve always wanted to do. If you could do anything at all.”

His smile turns cheeky. His fingers curl around her waist and he pulls her into another kiss. “This,” he says against her lips.

Adrienne laughs in spite of herself, but mirth feels raw and ragged in her throat. “Come on,” she begs, but she cannot say she minds when G’raha dips his head to press another kiss to the crook of her neck.

“Hm,” he murmurs against her skin, and she cannot resist threading her fingers through his hair. “There are so many things I’ve never done,” he says at last, “so many places I’ve never seen, even those rather close to where I was born. If I could do anything at all? I would…go. And see them.” She feels his lips curl upward. “Preferably with you.”

Adrienne is not a crier, and she does not intend to start now. If she wraps her arms tightly around G’raha and cradles his head beneath her chin, it is certainly not to hide the way she squeezes her eyes closed against a sudden onslaught of tears.

He returns her embrace in full, the crystal laying claim to his arms just as cold and unyielding as that upon his hands.

 _I will take you anywhere_ , she cannot bring herself to say, _and everywhere—_

_If only you will stay alive._


	10. kiss on the foot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one! NSFW!

G’raha rises quickly, now rather delightfully unabashed in his nakedness. Adrienne had never thought he moved slowly before, but it’s like he’s on his feet before she can so much as blink.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” she calls after him, mostly teasing.

He turns over his shoulder, mischief sparkling in his eyes. “My lady,” he drawls dramatically, “pray forgive me my weakness, for I had thought to fetch a _glass of water_.”

“Oh,” she utters, feeling a little foolish.

But G’raha is understandably in intoxicatingly high spirits, and he will not allow her to bear her shame in peace. “Would that thy humble servant could drink only of thine essence all the days of his life!” He kneels at her bedside, takes hold of her foot, and kisses it.

She kicks him gently, covering her face in a poor attempt to stifle her laughter. “Go get your stupid water!”

“Her Majesty is too kind.”

Adrienne leans back into her pillow with a sigh of deepest contentment. Those who knew him only as the Crystal Exarch are baffled by the change in him. He seems to many of their companions a completely different person, not unpleasant by any stretch, but decidedly unknown to them, something of a mystery to uncover. 

Even to those who knew him before, Krile in particular, he has become a familiar stranger. It is a sore spot, to be certain, a blemish upon an otherwise happy homecoming, that he now struggles to connect with a friend so dear she calls him by his given name. When last she had seen him, G’raha Tia had been a man of twenty-four or less, with none of the Crystal Exarch’s steadiness, nor even a fraction of his pain.

Adrienne feels quite lucky, in fact, that she is able to see the truth so clearly. G’raha has not changed very much at all. He has merely done something he has always been wont to do--namely, take an incredible risk, the likes of which none have ever even attempted before—and he has been rewarded with his life and vitality returned to him.

He will find his place in this world in due time, she has no doubt. She has always known that full many would adore him nearly as much as she does, if only they took the time to see him.

G’raha returns to her bedside with a glass of water for her, which she accepts happily. When she has had her fill, she sets the glass aside and reaches for him. He is all flesh and bone now, all warmth and youthful energy.

And insatiable, apparently. Before he was all gentle touches, eager and adoring, but with an ever-present undercurrent of hesitancy. Now he descends upon her with the ardour of a man who has but longed for her touch, his hands roving her body with intent, his fingers finding the apex of her thighs and coaxing her to match the height of his arousal with ease.

“Not too long ago,” he says between kisses, “you asked me to tell you what I would do, if I could do anything at all.”

“Mhm,” Adrienne intones, though the sound is slightly broken when he slides into her. She imagines she will remember that moment vividly for the rest of her days. She asked him out of desperation for something to say, something other than _you are dying before my eyes and I will need something to remember you by when you are gone_.

“May I tell you,” he continues, “what I thought to say first, in my foolishness?”

 _Anything_ , she wants to say. _Tell me anything and everything_. But all she manages is a fractured “Uh huh?” as his lips find her neck and his fingers curl around her thigh. He moves in her with deliberate slowness, blissfully unhurried, and she is already beside herself.

“If I could do anything, I thought,” he tells her, “I would reclaim my body in the Source, that I might court you properly. Not as a dying and desperate thing, turned already half to stone.” He says all of this with easy eloquence even as he thrusts into her with a growing urgency, even as Adrienne digs her nails into his skin. 

“I have no status or power here,” he continues, meeting her eyes with a sweetness that belies his actions, “and I expect it will take some time before I am even half the mage I was under the tower’s influence. But I swear, I shall do my utmost to do—to _be_ anything you need, anything you want.”

Adrienne smoothes his hair away from his face, caught somewhere between laughing and weeping. “All I need,” she says, with deepest affection, “is for you to be yourself, you absolute fool.”

G’raha stills within her, and his fingertips trail along the tender flesh of her inner thigh. “And you’re sure there’s nothing else?” he wonders innocently.

“Well,” Adrienne draws a lock of his silky hair between her fingers, feigning idleness, “there might be one thing.”

“Pray,” says G’raha airily, “tell me what it is, and I shall see to it at once.”

Much as it warms Adrienne’s heart to see G’raha becoming so self-assured, she feels privately that there will be an irreconcilable void in her life when she can no longer think of ways to make him blush. She takes his face between her hands and presses a gentle kiss to his lips before she speaks.

“Fuck me, Raha,” she entreats. “I need you.”

The change in him is so immediate it is almost comical, and it sets her heart deliciously aflutter. His bright red eyes widen and his hips jolt against her. “I am…” he breathes, licking his lips, “ _ever_ at your service.”

At first he seems determined to take his time, but mercifully, his ardour quickly builds, and he buries his face in the crook of her neck as he thrusts into her, mouthing words into her skin which she cannot hear but somehow still understands. 

She thinks distantly that she would gladly remain in this moment forever, but when G’raha’s hand splays across her belly, his thumb finding her clit as his movements grow frenzied, a wave of pleasure overtakes her, renders her desperate and grasping at him. She does not possess half his eloquence, nor less his ability to wield his silver tongue in the throes of passion; yet, words spill forth from her lips, anyway, broken and begging, clear enough in intent if not in meaning.

He says her name like a fevered prayer, pressing desperate kisses to her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, in his quest to capture her lips as his passion mounts, as he must surely feel her nearing her climax around him. 

“Come for me,” he pleads against her lips, and how quickly her body obeys! A cry of his name turns unintelligible as she arches into him, driven to new heights as she feels him follow her over the edge, hips stuttering against her even as he labours to continue tracing circles over her clit that send delightful aftershocks jolting through her.

She kisses him greedily, buries her hands in his hair and wraps her legs around his body, desperate to keep him close just a moment longer.

Eventually it is too much, and they come apart just a fraction, each with a shuddering gasp. A dull terror is beginning to take root in her heart, the one that has borne the loss of countless others, the one that has already lost him twice over, and she searches her mind frantically for something to say, something that will keep her from spoiling the moment with things she can’t do anything about.

“Is that your idea of a proper courtship?” she wonders, instead, trying at a teasing tone.

G’raha looks up. “Is it not to your liking?” he counters. “If you’d prefer, I could go and sit across the room.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Adrienne tightens her grip on him instinctively.

G’raha’s grin widens, and his tone turns dramatic. “Perhaps in a few months, our hands will brush, and I’ll write you a sad letter about it.”

“I hate you so much.” Adrienne laughs weakly, but she cannot bring herself to loosen her grip on him, lest he slip away from her yet again in her negligence.

“I don’t think that’s true,” says G’raha pleasantly.

Another time, she thinks, she’d like to tell him how dearly she has loved him in all the forms he has taken.


End file.
